New school nation's 1st in a library

Helen Griffith, executive director of E3 Civic High, left, and Mel Katz, right, chairman of the San Diego Public Library Foundation, on the seventh floor, one of the two floors the school will occupy at the new San Diego Central Library in East Village.

Helen Griffith, executive director of E3 Civic High, left, and Mel Katz, right, chairman of the San Diego Public Library Foundation, on the seventh floor, one of the two floors the school will occupy at the new San Diego Central Library in East Village.

From the venue to the curriculum to the academic calendar, nothing about San Diego’s newest high school will resemble a traditional campus.

e3 Civic High is set to open in September — in the middle of the multimillion-dollar Central Library rising from the downtown skyline. The public charter campus is being billed as the only school in the nation housed in a library.

Patrons of the library will be able to view, but not access, the school on the sixth and seventh floors as they ride a glass elevator up and down the building. Here’s what they might see: Movable glass walls separating intimate classrooms furnished with modular desks, benches and recliners; a demonstration kitchen for hands-on lessons in nutrition and cooking using ingredients from nearby urban gardens; and a staircase specially designed to double as an amphitheater and work space.

The open design for e3 Civic High reflects a transparency that educators hope will promote collaboration and project-based learning.

The school also will focus on civic engagement, which includes internships at City Hall, nonprofit organizations, courthouses and businesses.

Students from local universities and the Thomas Jefferson School of Law will tutor and mentor students. The library’s staff also will interact with the high school students, teaching them college-level research skills and giving them access to vast collections of printed and digital data.

The school also will have use of the library’s auditorium, homework center and teen center. A sculpture garden, computer labs and other features of the library will be incorporated into the curriculum.

“To be a student here and have this as your high school experience is going to be amazing,” said businessman Mel Katz, chairman of e3 Civic High’s board of directors.

It’s perhaps befitting that students will have significant access to the library, because the school helped rescue the library project in the first place.

Talk of a library-school partnership arose shortly after voters passed the $2.1 billion Proposition S bond measure in November 2008 for the San Diego Unified School District. The city approved a 40-year, $20 million lease for e3 Civic High in 2011, with payment to come from proceeds of that bond. The investment revived the proposal for a new Central Library, which was languishing because of a lack of private funding.

San Diego Unified authorized an additional $10 million to outfit the school’s two floors with everything from science labs and classrooms to stairs and furniture. This is the district’s first charter school to be built from scratch.

The new campus will help ease the need for a downtown high school for students living in or around San Diego’s urban core. More than half of high school-aged students living in downtown communities currently commute across the city to attend high school, according to district data.

Faculty are scheduled to begin working at e3 Civic High in August and classes are set to start Sept. 3 for 250 freshmen and sophomores. The school will have 9th through 12th grades by 2015, with total enrollment not to exceed 500.

As construction crews work to finish the charter’s interior, school officials are busy recruiting teachers and students. They are making special efforts to woo inner-city and minority students, who have historically underperformed academically compared to their white and Asian counterparts.

Helen Griffith, executive director of e3 Civic High, has been marketing the school to parents at local middle schools, churches and community centers.

“What I’m learning from parents is they don’t want their children to be a number. They don’t want their children to be lost in the crowd,” she said. “They want their children to be developed holistically, and that’s what we are all about.”

If the number of applications exceeds the number of spots available — a likely scenario — enrollment will be determined by lottery. All applicants in the county will get one chance in the lottery, those residing within San Diego Unified’s boundaries will get four chances overall and those living near an underperforming high school in the district (as measured by the federal No Child Left Behind Act) will have a total of seven chances.

Parents who submit applications for their children must attend an orientation to make sure they know what they are getting into.

The school day at e3 Civic High will span 7.5 hours, compared with 6.5 at most local public schools. The school year will last 190 days, about 15 more than at other San Diego Unified campuses. Freshmen will be expected to attend a two-week summer bridge program, and all other students will be offered a week of summer school.

Without an expansive ball field or gymnasium, physical education classes at e3 Civic High won’t fit the standard school mold. Students will sweat through Zumba lessons and X-Box workouts in a mirrored studio. The park at Petco Park will provide space for certain outdoor activities. Students will be encouraged to participate in the many downtown charitable runs and walks.

Attending school in a downtown library will mean letting go of the trappings of a typical American high school: no football games, lockers or cheerleaders.

It’s a trade-off that Velvet Wright of Paradise Hills is OK with. She’s hoping that her daughter will be allowed to attend e3 Civic High.

“I like the idea of my daughter attending a small school. It just seems more personalized,” Wright said. “At small schools, the students get to know the principal and the teachers.”

As much as Wright likes the smaller setting, it has taken her time to become comfortable with the idea of dropping off her daughter at a downtown library every morning. Her concerns about safety and security have been alleviated after learning about the campus’ design.

The school will have its own entrance, elevators and ventilation system. There will be 30 designated parking spaces in an underground garage, including five for visitors. Negotiations are underway for use of nearby parking lots to accommodate parents during special events.

Wright also likes the school’s focus on community engagement. The school’s officials want to cultivate students who will be ready for college. Science, technology, math and the arts will be stressed, with the aim of preparing students for jobs in those fields. Foreign-language offerings will include Spanish and Chinese.

The curriculum is based on research and programs at the successful High Tech High network of charters in San Diego County, as well as programs that rely on project-based learning.

As a charter school, e3 Civic High will be publicly funded and independently operated. In exchange for the promise to raise test scores through innovative education methods, charters are not bound by local and state education codes. They also are exempt from union hiring policies.

Several backers of e3 Civic High, including Katz, are business or community leaders who have been active in local school politics for years.

Some of them also have been critics of San Diego Unified and see this a chance to try their hand at offering an alternative.

“I don’t feel pressure,” Katz said. “We really want to become a lead charter school in San Diego County. It’s very exciting.”